3: 3
3
The weather service issued a red blizzard warning.
Mila was curled up on the couch, not even lifting her head.
"Auntie, today I want the specialty breakfast from that old place on the south side of town."
Mom froze for a second, then looked out at the howling wind.
That place was an hour and a half away by city bus.
Mom only hesitated a moment before Mila's face changed.
She threw herself into Clement's arms, sobbing and playing up her hurt.
"Clement, does Auntie hate me?"
"I just wanted one breakfast, and she won't even do that for me."
"Living here in your home, am I just extra weight? Am I someone people can't stand?"
Clement's brows drew tight, his voice cold.
"Mom, you're a grown woman. Can't you show a little sense?"
"Mila spent all those years abroad and this is the one thing she's been craving. Can't you just accommodate her?"
I was about to speak when Mom got there first.
"All right, I'll go buy it."
"Mom!"
"It's fine, I could use a walk anyway."
She changed her shoes, took the thermal container, and went out the door.
The wind outside was fierce.
It whipped her hair into a mess.
She smoothed it back and headed toward the bus stop.
Watching her walk away, I felt an ache I couldn't put into words.
I kept looking out the window. It took a full three hours and more before Mom came limping back.
Her face was red raw from the cold, her lips purple, frost caught in her brows and lashes.
"Mila, I got the breakfast. It's still hot."
Mila opened the lid and gave it one look.
"Oh no, I waited too long. I've lost my appetite."
Mom stood there stunned.
"I, I already went as fast as I could."
"Never mind, never mind, I won't eat it."
She tossed the thermal container into the trash.
The pale breakfast spilled out across the top.
Mom stood there, mud and slush all over her knees, head bowed like a child who'd done something wrong.
I grew up in a single-parent home.
The day he proposed, Clement went down on one knee.
"Sarah, I know you're afraid of marriage. But I swear to you, for the rest of my life I'll treat your mother like my own and honor her as such, and I'll never let either of you suffer again."
Yet every bit of suffering now came from him.
My voice shook and I couldn't stop it.
"That's my mother, not a maid you hired."
Mila's eyes went red.
"Clement, I didn't say anything. Why is Sarah always coming after me?"
Clement shot me a glare.
"She went on her own. Nobody forced her. And living here for free, isn't doing a few things the least she can do?"
Their shamelessness had me shaking all over, and for a moment I couldn't get a word out.
Mila slid a sideways look at my mother and pinched her nose, disgust all over her face.
"Ugh, so filthy. It reeks."
"Auntie, go wash up in the bathroom right now, before you get the house dirty."
My mother nodded, flustered, and quietly turned toward the bathroom.
I followed her in and watched her carefully lift her pant leg. The skin underneath was a solid bruise of purple and blue.
A sob caught in my throat.
"Mom, how did this happen? Does it hurt?"
"It's nothing. I just slipped and fell. It'll be fine in a couple of days."
"Mom, I want a divorce."
She patted my back gently, her voice worn out.
"Silly girl, you're carrying a baby. Where could you go?"
"A child needs a whole family when it's born. How can it manage without a father?"
"It doesn't matter if things are hard for me, if I'm tired, if I have to take some grief. As long as you're happy, that's enough."
A parent's heart is mostly like that.
She had been proud and dignified her whole life.
The year my father walked out on the two of us, she wasn't even forty.
Relatives and friends all urged her to remarry, saying raising a child alone was too hard.
She refused. She gritted her teeth and raised me, put me through college.
When the neighbors bullied us for having no man in the house, she stood in the doorway with a kitchen knife and cursed them out for three streets, and after that no one dared cross us.
But now, in this house, for me and the baby in my belly, she had ground down every last shred of her pride and dignity, too afraid even to raise her voice.
My happiness shouldn't come from swallowing my own hurt.
That night, I sent the lawyer a message.
"I keep the baby, everything else is fine however it lands. Please draw up a divorce agreement for me as soon as you can."
